According to the RFL's own regulations regarding the development of players. Saints have come top in terms of "club trained players"

Club trained players are players who are on the clubs register and were trained by that club for three years before that player reached the age of 21.

Saints have 14 of our 25 man squad in that category

Next are Leeds and Hull with 13
then
Wigan have 11
Bradford 10
Warrington 10
Castleford 7
Catalans 6
Quins 5
Wakefield 5
Salford 5
Huddersfield 4
Hull KR 1
Celtic 0

I think its interesting to note the performance of Quins and Catalans.
They are developing players as well or better than a number of the traditional heartland clubs.

Hull KR's performance on the development front is pathetic, and is in stark contrast to the excellent work of Hull FC.

It's very much a working progress, just tell me one thing though. It's alright having 12, 13, 14 juniors but are even half off them any good? Yes it's alright going out signing all these youngsters but i bet half, maybe more wont make it at the top level. Just look at the England RL team.

Some interesting results there. A case of being able to afford to risk breaking youngsters into the game or a good policy paying dividends?

Agreed - particularly when you consider that 2 of their fed trained players (Cooke and Wheeldon) are also products of Hull FC, to say nothing of Shaun Briscoe - brought to full glory at, yes, Hull.

Plus they've scavenged our old conditioner, employed Lee Crooks on the coaching staff - had to release him though 'cos every time he took a knock he bled Black and White - but replaced him with Chris Chester (yet another poached Hull champion) and our office cat has been missing since last year.

I wonder how many the clubs are on if you include the academy players in other teams.

I assume Leeds' would more than double (Morley, Newton, Carvell, Dowes, Raynor, Mathers, Calderwood, Kaye, Walker, Murrell, Netherton, Scruton to name a few), as would Wigans probably (Brown, Robinson, Briscoe etc).

Makes interesting reading though



I do however think the title of the thread is slightly mis-leading. When you take into consideration the total number of academy players a club has produced, not just the ones still there, I wonder what the total figures come out to. Junior Development is not just keeping hold of players (not always possible due to the salary cap) but surely how many are produced and able to 'cut the mustard' at other clubs as well. Perhaps thats just my opinion.

I think its interesting to note the rough correlation between junior development and league position.

The teams with the most juniors are those that tend to be at the top of the table and challenging for honours, while those with few youngsters are generally found to be cellar dwelling.

Hull KR therefore need to get their junior development sorted, otherwise they are unlikely to make more than the odd fleeting appearance in the upper reaches of SL in the years ahead.

Almost definitely this is due to the threat of relegation.

leeds is 14 not 13

smith
hall
mcguire
burrow
jones-buchanan
sinfield
diskin
bailey
burgess
gibson
allan
watkins
jones Bishop
mcShane

(altho McShane is number 26, but we have no 25)

This is incorrect Kallum Watkins is classed as club trained while there.


A "club trained while there" is a player who has spent a proportion but not all the 3 full seasons with his current club prior to the age of 21.

He will undoubtedly fall into the club trained category in a year or two.
However so will a couple of Saints young players in the squad

So why have they not rectified it? These figures are for this year aren't they?

Because clubs can't just magic a bunch of SL standard junior players out of nowhere

Their academies. Most teams run them. They just have not had the confidence before now to give their players a go because they couldn't afford to risk it, whereas the top teams could.

But they still don't. That's the point.